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Shocking Grasp is another one where the caster has to touch the target. We always ruled it (maybe wrongly, but hey) that casting a touch attack spell like that left the caster's hand "loaded" for a round, meaning the caster could cast the spell one round and then dart in and attack with it the...

The locals would have home-field advantage perhaps, in that as crossbow bolts can be all metal and some underground species are good at mining-smelting-manufacturing metal it means the locals might have loads of ammo for their crossbows while the PCs have nothing for their long and short bows.

You're far nicer than I am. :) Someone goes swimming unexpectedly, I go through most of that sequence - particularly with things like scrolls and spellbooks. And as a player, if my character wears armour then "Armour Care Kit" is usually high on my list of carried gear and "Whetstone" is...

A common-ish fumble result when using bow is that the string snaps; if you don't have spares in your gear list you'll need to jury-rig something or go bow-less for a while. You have a point, though: if the PCs aren't ready for action - e.g. they're jumped while travelling through a forest - I...

The player whose PC just spent 4000 g.p. to pick up an Endless Quiver would have a pretty good case for feeling resentful if another player's PC just always had endless ammo anyway because of being too lazy to track it and-or the DM not enforcing ammo limits. I don't look at D&D as a...

Not sure if any of it remains on this site but in 2012 or so @Morrus had a Battle of the Bards here, where performers were invited to submit RPG-related work - either original or a performed rewording of an existing song - and people would vote for their favourite. About 40 works were...

Thanks for reminding me why I never used 1e initiative as written. :) It seems, though, like the 10-segment casting round was designed to line up with the [d6+weapon speed] initiative of the melee types. One can accomplish much the same at way less complexity by ditching weapon speed and...

Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've ever seen a spear-specialized character in any game I've run. Sure, some have taken proficiency with spear, but never specialization. I suspect it's because spear is seen as a lesser or more primitive weapon while sword is seen as the more advanced or...

Not odd at all. Umbran said nobody tracks deaths in D&D games, I merely pointed out that for my own part, I do. And if enough people in Europe share their salary numbers and someone aggregates that info then you've got something to work with. It might not be "scientific" for peer-review...

If it's something the PCs know they're getting into e.g. they're intentionally travelling across a desert known to be there, calling it out makes sense. If it's something the PCs might not realize they're in until it's too late e.g. they've just been teleported to a barren Atacama-like area...

Fair enough. Not all parties pack a Ranger with them, however; and "My character, who is a brigade archer trained by the Queen's Army, has for years been conditioned that his daily ration of arrows comes from the quartermaster's supply; he knows far better than most people how to shoot them but...

I'm not that concerned if they're in a situation where resupply is relatively easy; I just get them to dock a bit of cash and carry on. But inability to resupply often comes up more often and more quickly than you might think. A typical dungeon doesn't provide much by way of fletching...

Assuming you can find something sharp to tip/weight them with; never mind field-made arrows aren't likely to be as effective as those made by a trained fletcher.

So in effect you'd rather the characters have unlimited ammo? 'Cause that's the only other option here; and not only is it unrealistic in the in-game sense, IMO it's borderline cheating in the meta sense. Just about every single card in M:tG seems to be designed to make the player's life more...

In all D&D games in aggregate? No. In our own games here? Yes. It's impossible to track what led up to the death - was it bad luck or bad planning or player-side stupid or DM-side malice etc. - but the actual cause of death can be tracked provided half-decent records are being kept. And...

Same here. Casting seems to run on a 10-segment round where everything else uses a 6-segment round; and it was never clear to me whether the extra four casting segments were supposed to be tacked on to the end of the round or whether casters used 6-second segments while everyone else's were 10...

It makes sense, though, as it neatly takes into account that the spell also has to cover the distance between the creatures - if you've got 36 feet worth of faerie fire (3rd-level caster) you can get two human-size creatures standing 10 feet apart or three if they're right next to each other...

Telling DMs to keep good records of in-game time isn't dictating or even suggesting a play type or play style, it's just good solid DM advice no matter what you're otherwise doing with the game.

Perhaps, on a successful passive perception roll. Doesn't do much for the guy firing slingstones at the windows, though. One thing many of these stylish descriptions, both long form and short, are sadly lacking in are useful practical specifics such as room dimensions and the number and...

Same benefit as any other restriction in a game: it adds to the game's challenge. That a bishop in chess can only move on the diagonals is an intentionally annoying game mechanic that every chess player has to deal with. But would chess be a better game were that annoying restriction removed...